Scary As Hell? No...BORING As Hell! **SPOILERS**

Rating: Null/10 (23 October 2003)

I rented this DVD with the hope of seeing an incredibly scary film. As usual, the film did not live up to the hype. I LOVE movies dealing with the horrors of biological weapons, but this one was so weak it hurts.
This film BORED me to death. It's a series of cliche, predictable zombie/end-of-the-world scenes stolen from several other films. A complete WASTE of time.
The first half of the film (stolen from "Resident Evil", "Dawn of the Dead", etc., etc., etc.) consists of a cast of dull, irritating characters wandering aorund the city staring into space. Then, every once in a while some "infected" people would chase them. And NONE of the infected people are scary -- or even mildly frightening. They're just a bunch of slobbering, prancing, red-eyed psychotics who are easily dispatched.
Been there. Done that. Thank you very much.
The second half of the film (stolen from "Day of the Dead") is just plain stupid. You knew the MOMENT the main characters arrived at the military installation that the soldiers were going to try and rape the women. They might as well have worn signs around their necks. You also knew the main guy (I don't even remember his name because I didn't care) was going to stop the soldiers by releasing the infected soldier chained up in back.
And the ending was the worst of all! It's a sugar-coated finale that doesn't even fit the mood of the rest of the film. It's obvious they tested the film with audiences and some idiots in the studio marketing department forced them to tack on a "happy ending".
PLEASE! Save me from "happy endings".
Take a look at the alternative endings in on the DVD. The one where the main guy dies in the hospital and the two women walk off down the hall is exactly where it should have ended. Better yet, they should have filmed the proposed third alternative ending that eliminates the idotic solder story line all together.
Actually, they should have just saved their time and money and NOT made this film at all.
I see that Danny Boyle, the director, passed on making "Alien 4". Thank God for that!
JK